Legal tender warning
The National, Friday February 20th, 2015
By GYNNIE KERO
BANK of Papua New Guinea (BPNG) Governor Loi Bakani (pictured) has warned that those who use noted of legal tender for commercial purposes without the bank’s approval can be prosecuted.
He yesterday said the bank has found traders using the K100 designs in wallets, laplaps or for other advertising purposes.
“We’ve (Bank of PNG) seen people using signs of kina or bank notes for commercial use,” he said.
“Those people, who do that without getting approval from BPNG, are in breach of our ACT, we can prosecute them.
“But at this stage, we encourage those people who want to use legal tenders for commercial or advertising purposes to get approval from us.” Bakani made another call for retailers to issue 5 toea as change to customers and not hand out lollies instead. He said that was not acceptable unless the customer accepts it in place of the change.
“The 5 toea is still a legal it’s in circulation in Papua New Guinea, we have stocks of 5 toea. There shouldn’t be any shortage in the banks or the shops.
“Producing copper coins has been expensive, that’s why we had to demonetise 1 toea and 2 toea but all the other currencies, the coins 5 toea and upwards is still legal tender for bank notes.”